PLAN Magazine (The Business of Building)
January 2004

BOX ARCHITECTURE’S “MAGIC YEARS” CRECHE

“Magic Years” is a new 5,000 sq ft purpose-built crèche for 60 children in Carpenterstown, Dublin 15, by Box Architecture. It is part of development that incorporates a residential cluster to the west of the site nestled within a suburban housing estate. The brief was to provide a “home away from home”.

Approach to the building is by a shared car park, a drop-off point, and then one proceeds by foot through a series of external spaces by an orchard to the heart of the building. One then passes between low and tall forms into the central hall incorporating pigeonholes for children’s belongings.

Five brick elements arrange the double-height central hall, creating a hierarchy of overlapping layers giving access to the play rooms adjacent to the exterior of the building where the smallest of the spaces connect to the garden. Timber screens separate the rooms from the hall, forming spaces at the scale of the children for displays and sittings. Windows are shifted within the wall thickness to express the mass of the brick elements.

The brick elements provide each of the children’s rooms with changing and eating facilities. Different staircases give access to the dormitories and a balcony at first floor that creates the perception of a maze to the child. Rooflights are used in differing orientations throughout the building to animate and promote awareness of moving light.

The rhythm of spaces is extended to the external landscaping treatment that results in dense foliage to the southern boundary.

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